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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22766707">Comfort</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanitorBot/pseuds/JanitorBot'>JanitorBot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>XZero Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rockman Zero | Mega Man Zero, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Drabble, Illustrations, M/M, Megaman Zero Original Concept</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:34:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22766707</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanitorBot/pseuds/JanitorBot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Frozen, X whispers, “You’re going to keep me as a hostage.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>X/Zero (Rockman)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>XZero Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637977</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>126</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Comfort</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>XZeroWeek 2020 Day 5: Comfort<br/>Takes place in the Mega Man Zero original concept, in which there is no Copy X and the original X is the major antagonist.<br/>Also, I KEEP ON BREAKING MY &lt;1000 WORD DRABBLE RULE DAMMIT.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zero swings down with everything he had. A clean, diagonal slash starting at X’s left shoulder, a second struggle through his fortified chest, and finishing it across his waist. X’s lips part in a silent gasp.</p><p>Bisected, Neo Arcadia’s ruler falls. His bladed wings collapse like pillars before the rest of him follows down.</p><p>The Azure Angel doesn’t get up. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t.</p><p>Too long. X has been functioning for too long.</p><p><em>Finally, </em>X thinks dully. This really is the best. His Guardians are complacent with the incestuous power orbit they fulfill with their creator at the center. Most of the humans and reploids alike under Neo Arcadia’s branches fear to raise their voice against him. The rare few who do like Ciel and her Resistance members can’t even touch him.</p><p>Only Zero can fulfill the role as X’s executor. X built the Crimson Hero’s legend for the past century for this moment. The heroic Maverick Hunter who once fought alongside X returns to end his best friend’s oppressive reign – it’s perfect. It’ll give those who harbored doubt regarding X to feel validated and give those who sided with him a reason to tread lightly around the Resistance. Knowing his children, the Guardians will pursue after Zero, but Zero can handle them.</p><p>X can lose his faith in the entire world (and he has), but he’ll always believe in Zero.</p><p>Zero is walking closer to X’s broken form. X disconnected from his power distributors and pain sensors ages ago. A wave of peace comes over him and he shuts his eyes, awaiting oblivion.</p><p>“That was easy,” X hears above him.</p><p>X opens his eyes to stare blankly back at Zero despite the twinge of annoyance.</p><p>“I remembered you were stronger than this, X,” Zero voices disapprovingly. “What kind of form was that? It’s clunky and wholly inappropriate for close quarter combat.”</p><p>Really. All Zero has to do is finish him off. Is he seriously choosing this time to critique X’s Armed Phenomenon?</p><p>Zero appears contemplative and vaguely frustrated. “You…you had plenty of armors and weapon sets to choose from.” He sounds so uncertain. Understandable, since he’s still suffering amnesia according to Phantom’s reports. “You clearly have a lot of power. You took apart the floor to limit my range when you could have just taken down the entire level!”</p><p>If it was two decades earlier, X may still have the capacity to care enough to roll his eyes. Instead he answers without inflection,” I’m not going to destroy Area-X to kill you. That’s overkill. However, I did underestimate you.”</p><p>X didn’t but that’s besides the point.</p><p>“After everything I did, you <em>should </em>have been aiming for overkill,” Zero retorts incredulously. “But instead you chose to utilize low powered lasers, EMP binding rings, magnetic draw-rays and focused flame beams? Those can’t even take out a civiloid without repeated exposure! If anything, they’re only good for…”</p><p>Zero pauses. “Riot control. You were using reploid riot control agents.”</p><p>X’s eyes narrow. He’ll be damned if Zero is having second thoughts.</p><p>And because the world hasn’t been kind for the past two centuries and it refuses to change that now, Zero continues. “If you wanted to kill me but keep Area-X standing, you would have taken more advantage of your flight capacity and attack me from afar. But you kept staying close enough so I could hurt you. You minimized the battlefield but it wasn’t to limit my range of movement.” Sharp blue eyes glance back at the entrance whence he came. “The gap is wide but I can still make the leap. I have an out. If anything, you cut off any potential reinforcements to come aid <em>you. </em>You sabotaged yourself, X.”</p><p>Blond hair whirl back down to the fallen emperor. “Why?” Zero demands. “If you weren’t going to give your all, what was the point of this?”</p><p>The last of his patience sapped away, X remotely transmits a signal to security.</p><p><em>“The final defense line has been destroyed,” </em>cry the alarms.<em> "Self-Destruction Mode activated in Area-X. All dangerous elements are to be eliminated.”</em></p><p>"The Core is going down and it’ll take both of us with it,” says X to the bewildered warbot. “You don’t have much time.”</p><p>“I have no intention of going along with your murder-suicide,” Zero retorts swiftly.</p><p>X makes a nonchalant face and twitches in a manner that if he still had a complete body, he’d be shrugging. “Then run.”</p><p>
  <em>I’m giving you a choice, Zero.</em>
</p><p>Because there were times when X gazed down on Neo Arcadia, gazed beyond the Eden Dome and saw the wretched state that is the post-Elf War world, and thought it would be a kindness to crush Zero’s processor in his sleep.</p><p>Except that’s not X’s call to make, which is why Zero’s still standing. If X really wanted to kill him, he could have changed his mind and let the Guardians stay. No matter how strong Zero is, fighting against all five of them is a death sentence.</p><p>Then in an entirely unprecedented move, Zero bends down to gather X’s halved body into his arms.</p><p>“I also have no intention to let you do what you want either,” Zero glares.</p><p>The Crimson Hero starts dashing, just as soon the tremors start, and for the first time since Zero reunited with X, the blue android expresses something besides apathy.</p><p>X’s jaws drop, crossed between open shock and a snarl. “What are you – “ he breaks off when Zero pushes his accelerators to leap across the yawning maw to the exit. Zero barely makes it - a tiptoe pass the edge - and he’s away.</p><p>“Zero, what are you doing!” X hisses.</p><p>“I may have lost a lot of memories, but I know that you don’t want to die,” Zero grunts, his words almost lost in the roars of the first explosion behind them.</p><p>“So you think that I prefer being forced to live after you defeated me?” Without limbs, X manages a tremendous effort to shake out of Zero’s unrelenting grasp. “Let me out!”</p><p>“No,” Zero rejects smoothly. “You’re more useful alive than dead. As long as the Resistance have you on-base, Neo Arcadia won’t attack us recklessly.”</p><p>The worst part is Zero's right.</p><p>Frozen, X whispers, “You’re going to keep me as a hostage.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“You – !” X starts.</p><p>
  
</p><p>It’s incredible how much fury that simple answer provoked; it’s all-consuming and despicable, a burning smog that’s choked off X’s ability to speak. He’s almost forgotten what rage felt like and now there’s so much of it that he doesn’t know what to do with it. A small part of him marvels at the novelty of genuinely <em>feeling</em> again.</p><p>“I’m giving you an out X,” Zero adds softly. The ground rumbles beneath him and yet he stays steadfast forward. “That’s why you wanted me to retire you – you wanted an out. Well I’m giving you one. No one would think you’re abandoning your people if I stole you.”</p><p>X stares, uncomprehendingly. Whether he’s trembling out of the overwhelming emotion flooding him or because the literal floor beneath Zero’s feet is giving out, he’s not sure.  </p><p>The hands around X grows firmer. His helmet is tucked beneath the combatdroid’s chin protectively, his dark aural cone resting right next to Zero’s thrumming core. A comfort that X thought he’d lost forever.</p><p>“I’m sorry for not being there for you, X. But this time, I will be. I’m not going to leave you alone with yourself again.”</p><p>In Zero’s arms, X shatters.</p>
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